University of Colorado researchers are reporting that gaping crevasses and bendable ice found in the largest remaining ice shelf on the Antarctica Peninsula make it more susceptible to collapse.

The scientists' findings were presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

The researchers also found, however, that ribbons running through the Larsen C Ice Shelf are composed of a mixture of ice types that, together are more prone to bending than breaking. This makes the shelf more resilient than it might otherwise be.

The Larsen C Ice Shelf covers more than 22,000 square miles of sea, about twice the size of the state of Massachusetts. It is all that remains of a series of ice shelves that once adhered to the eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula, stretching into the Weddell Sea.

The Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated abruptly in January 1995, and was followed by the breakup of the Larsen B shelf in February 2002. Scientists believe the collapses were caused, in part, by rising temperatures in the region, which saw the Arctic Peninsula warm by 4.5 degrees since the middle of last century.

The research team involved is from CU's Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of CU and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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